Heads Up, Teachers: New Piano Music

      We pianists have an advantage over other musicians. We command a wide range of sonorities and, well, a wide range of pitches. It's no wonder then, that so many composers come from a keyboard background. I've always felt that piano students who explore composition have an added insight into the innards of music, giving them a leg up in the profession.

I'm happy to announce that an emerging piano
student of mine, Carlos Gardels, is also an emerging composer of music for piano. (No, I don't teach composition.) He has recently published "Three Fantasies," available through Theodore Presser (Presser). Teachers who participate in festivals and competitions are always on the lookout for the "American" category or the "Modern" category. Have a look at these imaginative, lyrical excursions into "fantastical escapes from reality."

     You can listen to the composer's demos here: Prelude, Cosmic Lullaby, Intermezzo

Anton Arensky Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky for Piano, Four Hands

Reduced from $9.00 to $5.84

      As part of a continuing effort to help pianists expand their experience of music beyond the eighty-eight keys, I offer this volume of exhilarating Romanticism. It's one thing to listen, but quite another to work out musical issues with a partner to explore more deeply into the nuts and bolts of the music. And partnerships help develop listening and sight-reading skills. So what's not to like?

    This set of variations is the celebrated string-orchestra composition by one of Russia's most romantic composers, which I've transcribed for piano, four hands. Here you will find idiomatic piano figures that are both easy and somewhat challenging. 

     The variations began life as the slow movement of Arensky's String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 35, for the unusual scoring of violin, viola, and 2 cellos. Written in 1894, the year after the death of Tchaikovsky, it is a tribute to that composer. The theme is from the song "Legend," the fifth of Tchaikovsky's sixteen Children's Songs, Op. 54. Tchaikovsky's song was inspired by a poem  called "Roses and Thorns" by the American poet Richard Henry Stoddard. At the first performance of Arensky's quartet, the slow movement was so well received that Arensky soon arranged it as a separate piece for string orchestra, Op. 35a, in which form it has remained among the most popular of all Arensky's works.

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    Arensky                                                                      

      
    Some piano folks are understandably not very familiar with this Russian composer from the Romantic era, as he did not write extensively for piano. So, here is a recording of the original version for string orchestra:

Listen here: Arensky Variations 

Enslavement to the Notation: Chopin Preludes 1 and 8

 

     A student pianist cites a "raging debate" as to whether the thumb note in Chopin's Prelude No. 8 should be held.  Some debaters were of the opinion that "in all Chopin, notes are to be physically held for their notated duration." No sources were cited. Others insisted that Chopin himself would not have held the notes. The student wants my opinion as to whether Chopin said anything definitive about this issue of holding notes. 

Chopin's Prelude No. 8

     This issue is at the heart of many (most?) technical problems that uninformed pianists suffer. It is about enslavement to the notation, particularly in music of the romantic period and beyond (I include Beethoven, particularly in his late period). My mantra: The score tells us what the music sounds like, not how it feels in our hands. To my knowledge, Chopin is not on record as having said "don't hold those notes." He did say, however, over and over again, that "flexibility" and "freedom" are of extreme importance. 

     I can't imagine he would have held down those notes. Their lengths and melodic importance are indicated with the quality of sound. To the nay sayers I would point out that in Prelude No. 8 as well as Prelude No. 1, Chopin has indicated pedal for the entire measure. Holding down both the note and the pedal seems to me like two jobs where one will suffice. I opt for the easier one, the one that gives me freedom.

Chopin's Prelude No. 1